Posts Tagged ‘Card Game’

Latest Kickstarter arrival is Trickster… A trick taking game, except generally you want to have as few cards as possible instead of as many. There are 8 colors, and each game you pick 7 heroes (there are nearly two dozen different heroes to choose from). Each trick one person picks a card to lead with, and the second player (called the Trickster) picks a card to follow with, which sets the rule for that trick. If they pick the same color, the rest of the cards have to match color. If they pick the same hero, cards have to match that hero, if they pick neither, then no card can match color or hero of a previously played card.

If you can’t play a hero the trick is over, you bust (taking all the cards into your tableau) and start the next trick.

The really interesting thing about the game is each hero has a special ability that lets you change up the game. Many of them involve manipulating tableaus (the cards you have in play, that count against you at the end of the round), hands, the trash, deck or even the pot (the cards currently being played).

I’ve only played a few games and it definitely feels like there is a ton of depth, but it also feels like the game that works best at 5 or 6 players. With four players it flows pretty well, but at 3 it definitely felt forced.

Dixit is a great game for all ages. It is a game about balance. It’s a game about telling stories. Here’s how it works. Each player takes a turn being the storyteller. You have a handful of cards with various pictures on them. The storyteller will pick one card and try and tell a story about it that is obvious enough so that at least one person is able to guess it, but not so obvious that everyone does. So Balance. Once the storyteller has put a card face down on the table, everyone else looks through their hands and tries to find the card that would most easily be mistaken for the correct choice. You get a point for everyone who guesses your card instead of the correct card. If no one guesses the right card the storyteller also loses 2 points. If everyone guesses it, the same thing happens. Then it’s time for the next person to tell a story.

If you’ve played Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity then the basic principle will be familiar to you, but the added interaction of trying to come up with stories that only one person will get is a refreshing change. Plus you don’t have to worry about someone always picking certain cards as right just because they think it’s funny which can be a problem in both A2A and CAH. Games are fairly quick once everyone understands what’s going on, and participation is pretty constant. The cards are beautifully illustrated, and there are 2 “expansion packs” that each have another 80 or so cards to either make the base game longer, or give a new twist to it. I’d definitely recommend checking it out if you have a chance. The only downside is this game really requires 4 or 5 players to shine, and supports 6 at most. I’m kind of tempted to make a 8 player expansion, I don’t think it would slow down the game much, and with 2 packs of cards it should still be sufficiently long.

So one of the newest games I’ve picked up is Legendary. It’s a semi-cooperative Deck building game, set in the Marvel Universe. This is definitely very excellent. First off is the fact that it is semi-cooperative. That is to say either everyone wins (if you defeat the mastermind) or everyone loses. In the event that you do manage to win, there are victory points for defeating villains and saving bystanders, so one person can be the clear “hero”… the biggest winner. This makes for some interesting dynamics…early on you’ll want to cooperate, work together and try ensure everyone is making progress, otherwise things can quickly get out of hand and you all lose. Later in the game though, you may find yourself wanting to try and hose the other players so you can do all the good deeds yourself.

So far we’ve played approaching a dozen games, and lost three times. All three times have been to Loki, who is admittedly the toughest of the masterminds, but even still it’s been more to bad luck… the heroes all end up being too expensive or the Scheme Twists come out too fast. The fact that almost a third of the games I’ve played have been lost actually is pretty awesome in my mind… there is little more boring then a game that you can always win… and coop games that can be even more true, even if there is an “overall winner” as is the case here.

I certainly hope we get some more copies in stock at Fun-N-Games, because I will not hesitate to recommend this game to anyone (unless they love DC and hate Marvel I guess), and no one who has played it with me has had less than a great time.

Complaints:

The game is a little confusing to setup/put away/store.

The dividers are very nice, but it’d have been sweet if they were pre-labeled.

Needs a “setup” app…

Needs expansions so bad… Where are the FF? I really want Nightcrawler (my favorite Marvel character) and Dr. Strange.

Doc Oc shoulda been a mastermind, not just a Spider-Foe.

Also to anyone looking to sleeve the game, I’d suggest 2 or 3 colors of sleeves. The Heroes all need to be the same color, as do the Villains, Bystanders, Twists and Master Strikes… The Schemes and Masterminds could probably stand be be a different color (and TBH, you could put each Mastermind and his 4 cards in different sleeves if you have a few extras handy.).